Awesome Video Game Colt- SEASON TWO
by Matthais Unidostres
Summary: In the style of the Angry Video Game Nerd and reviewers from Normal Boots, Hidden Block, and That Guy With the Glasses; Button Mash by Jan Animations continues to review video games both old and new.
1. Chapter 1

_AVGN: Game Over (Intro Music) by Gavin MacLean._

* * *

 _He's gonna take you back to the past . . ._

Button Mash jumped out of bed and landed in front of his mirror.

 _He's gonna play some games from past_

 _And also recent games while they last_

Button smoothed his hair with his fore hoof and then put on his beanie hat. Sweetie Belle stepped out from behind him while singing.

 _He'd rather have. . ._

 _A Changeling Drone. . ._

 _Spit a glob of green slime in his ear!_

Button controlled Gordon Freeman, blasting Changelings with the Gravity Gun.

 _He'd rather drink. . ._

 _A freezing milkshake. . ._

 _And get the worst brain freeze of the year!_

Button had two straws in his mouth as he drank two milkshakes at once. Sweetie Belle watched him in disbelief as is eyes widened and he suddenly reared back and screamed in pain.

 _He's the most awesome gamer you'll ever behold_

 _He's the awesome Nintendo Colt_

Button sat on his desk, looking at a Play Station Plus card and a XBOX Live card.

 _He's the awesome Microsoft, Sony Colt_

 _He's The Awesome Video Game Colt!_

Button slammed the buttons on his Wii-mote as he played ThruSpace. The keydron missed the hole and smashed against the wall, causing Button to throw down the Wii-mote in anger.

 _He knows all of the shortcuts and cheats_

On his NES, Button played Super Mareo Bros. 3 and flew over a castle wall to find a Warp Whistle.

 _But there still are games that he just can't beat_

Button and Sweetie Belle knocked heads as they tried to play Wonderbolt Free Fliers, causing Button to cry.

 _But he won't care . . ._

 _He still wants more . . ._

 _He just won't stop till he beats the high score._

Button stuck out his tongue in concentration as he tired to get past the acid and flying enemies in Maretroid, and kept failing.

 _With is beanie hat . . ._

 _And Humgonian's words . . ._

 _He'll play on past the boss's red door._

On the Wii, Button had Mareo ground pound on a meteor to smash the lock on a big boss door.

 _He's the most awesome gamer you'll ever behold_

 _He's the awesome Nintendo Colt_

Button's mouth hang open as he sat playing Goat Simulator, staring at the glitches and insanity going on in the game world.

 _He's the awesome Microsoft, Sony Colt_

 _He's The Awesome Video Game Colt!_

Button shouted into his headset as he played Friendship Fortress 2.

 _He doesn't have his Cutie Mark yet,_

 _But he really doesn't care much at all about that._

Button shouted in rage as he ripped the Spectrobes game card out of his 3DS, threw it on the ground, and stomped on it repeatedly.

 _But bad games make him throw a fit,_

 _And when they get too hard, he just shouts-_

 _"RAGE QUIT!"_ Button shouted, throwing his hooves up after loosing all his stuff in Minecraft.

 _He'll play all night and not care one bit,_

 _But when he gets ripped off he doesn't forget_

Button sighed and drank an apple juice box as he stared at the load screen of Soarin '06.

 _He'd rather bite . . ._

 _A Quarry Eel . . ._

 _Than pay two gems to the Balloon Roulette Wheel._

Button stared at his 3DS screen with a look of shock as he slowly turned his head to look at the 20 bit Nintendo eShop card in his free hoof.

 _He has a list . . ._

 _Of lousy games . . ._

 _What were they thinking? Were the programmers insane?_

Button glared at the FRI logo on the Spirit of speed 1973 game box, and then threw it as hard as he could against the wall.

 _He's the most awesome gamer you'll ever behold . . ._

Button cheered as he portal flinged himself through a level of Portal 2.

He's the most awesome gamer you'll ever behold

He finds the secrets and cheats so it just never gets old

Button opened up the Portal 2 Test Chamber creator and put together a test chamber. The whole process was shown in fast speed.

 _He's the cutest most awesome gaming colt_

 _He's the Awesome Video Game Colt . . ._

Button and Sweetie Belle sat next to each other with their laptops running Minecraft, and they gave each other a nod and started their game.

 _Yeah, he's the Awesome Video Game Colt._

 **Episode 7: Free-To-Play Pokemon Games**

Button Mash sat in his room, just thinking. Then he said, "Remember back when you used to just go to the video game store, buy a game, take it home, and play it? Yeah, it's simple and direct. You wanna play a game? Well then you gotta pay for it. You can't expect to play video games for free."

Button Mash sighed and held up his 3DS. "That is, until now."

Button Mash turned on his 3DS and selected the game Pokemon Shuffle.

"This is Pokemon Shuffle. A free-to-play Pokemon game. Yeah, that's right. A free-to-play Pokemon game. A free-to-play Nintendo game."

Button Mash looked up with wide eyes. "I know it sounds impossible, but exists. Here it is. They did. Nintendo did it."

"For those of you who don't know, free-to-play games are games you can download and play without paying a bit, but there are often things inside the games, like power-ups or extra levels, that you have to pay for. So, it's basically a flim-flam."

"I expect trickery like this from small game companies that makes apps for smartphones, but Nintendo?" Button said in disbelief. Button calmed down a bit and smiled calmly, "But then again, this is Nintendo we're talking about here, so I bet this game will actually be pretty good. So good in fact that the in game micro-transactions won't be necessary. Well then, let's play it!"

The game started up, a reporter pony appeared on the screen.

"The game starts out with a tutorial guided by a reporter named Amelia. What happened, was Alexa too busy? Anyway, I'll spare you the boring tutorial, cause the games real easy. In the game, you go along a board game-like path battling wild Pokemon. How do you battle these Pokemon? You wanna know? Bejeweled style!"

A grid with Pokemon faces appeared on the bottom screen. Button moved the faces around the match lines of three or more. The faces disappeared and flew at the Espur face on the top screen.

Button looked up and shrugged, "Okay . . . well . . . that's different."

Button went back to playing and continued, "In order to win the level and move on to the next one, you gotta knock the Pokemon out before you run out of moves. That's right, you got a turn limit. Also, if you win, you get a chance to catch the Pokemon in a Pokeball. Catching Pokemon is important, because when you get enough, you can choose up to four Pokemon to use in battle before each level. That way you can use Pokemon that are super effective against the Pokemon you're fighting, which deals double damage. You can also increase your Pokemon's attack power by leveling them up. Yeah, they get experience points every time you use them in a level. Pokemon also have special abilities, like getting rid of blocks or doing more damage when you match 4, or increasing the power of a certain type during a combo. And best of all, every time you beat a Mega Evolved Boss level, you get a Mega Stone that can allow your Pokemon to Mega Evolve, and Mega Evolved Pokemon can totally destroy the game field!"

Button Mega Evolved his Audino into Mega Audino, and matched three of them together. This took out the Pokemon around it, leading to a huge cascade that led to a long combo as Pokemon fell into matches.

Button looked up and said, "Okay, so this game sounds like a lot of fun. It has tons of Pokemon, action, cool visuals, and RPG elements. So how could you screw it up?"

Button frowned darkly and looked down at the screen. "Well, I'll tell ya how. Every time you even attempt to play a level, you have to pay a heart. You start with five hearts, and each heart takes 30 minutes to recharge. Each level usually takes about a minute to play. This means that for every 5 minutes of game play, you have to wait at least 25 minutes before you can play again."

Button looked back up with his mouth hanging open in shock. "WHAT WERE THEY THINKING!?" he shouted. Then he blinked and scowled, "Oh wait, I know what they were thinking. They were thinking MONEY! That's what!"

"Ya see, you can only have five hearts from waiting for them to regenerate. But you can also pay real money to get gems, and then trade these gems for more hearts. Up to 80 of them."

"Speaking of money, there's another type of currency in the game called coins. You earn coins by beating levels. What do you use coins for? Well, before each level you can use coins to buy power-ups like extra moves, stopping the Pokemon you're battling from disrupting you, making combos easier by removing one possible match-able Pokemon, extra experience points, giving you more attack power, or to make your Pokemon Mega Evolve right away. The only trouble is that some of these power-ups take a lot of coins. Mega Start costs 2000 coins, Attack Power costs 3000 coins, and making combos easier costs 9000 coins! What makes it even worse is that earning coins takes forever! Beating a stage the first time gives you 100 coins, but every time after that gives you only 30 coins. Why replay a stage? To catch a Pokemon you couldn't catch the first time!"

"Ya see, after you beat a stage, you get a chance to catch the Pokemon. The more moves you have left, the better chance you have of catching it."

A Pikachu was on the top screen. The meter on the bottom showed a 60% percent chance of catching it. Button tapped the Pokeball, and it flew at the Pikachu. The ball moved, and the Pikachu broke out.

"Denkalith," Button said darkly as the Pokeball was replaced by a Great Ball. A message appeared asking if he wanted to buy the Great Ball.

"If the Pokeball doesn't work, you can buy a Great Ball for 2500 coins. Yeah, that much. Trust me, you will rarely have enough coins to buy it. The Great Ball doesn't even guarantee that you'll catch it. It just boosts the chance of you catching it by 15% or 20%. Sometimes even less! And you can't even buy any stronger ones! How about an Ultra Ball? How about a Master Ball? How about any other balls? How come you can't buy a Dive Ball so you can catch a Water-type, or a Dusk Ball so you can catch one while playing at night? But nope, you're stuck with Pokeballs and Great Balls."

Button paid the coins and caught the Pikachu with a 90% chance.

"And do you know what really gets me angry? The meter doesn't even have to be that high to catch a Pokemon. I've caught Pokemon with as little as a 30% chance! It might actually be better to just skip the Great Ball and replay the stage. . . if I weren't worried about using up all my hearts just trying to catch one Pokemon that I might not even use again!"

Button reached for his juice box and took a long drink from it.

"You're probably wondering, is there a faster way to earn coins? Well, if you connect to internet, you get an extra 500 coins once every day, 1000 on every tenth day. You can earn more coins by beating special levels you download. You can get extra coins, hearts, and even gems through Street Pass. That's when you walk by other 3DS's that have the game while your 3DS is in sleep mode. The only problem with that is that you'd be lucky to find more than 3 people who have this game!"

"You can also buy coins with gems, ah, no."

He then went back to playing the game.

"Okay, so here's Mega Mewtwo Y . . ."

Button began matching Pokemon to attack Mega Mewtwo Y, but then a whole bunch of blocks appeared, limiting his moves.

"Oh come on, that's not fair! How am I supposed to beat this boss if I can't do any combos! I didn't even get a chance to Mega Evolve my Gengar! I haven't even taken out half of Mewtwo's HP!"

Button ran out of moves, and a message came up asking if he wanted to pay a gem for five more moves.

"Well I don't have any gems, and if I did, I still wouldn't pay one because that's basically 3000 coins down the drain!"

"Well, the game tells you to catch Pokemon that are super effective whenever you lose. Like right now, it tells me to catch Zoroark. And when you fail at catching Zoroark, it tells you to go catch another Pokemon, then another, and you get stuck in this whole catching spree that drains your coins and hearts, which drains your gems, which trains your real life wallet and real life time!"

"And look at this, I got Gengar, Zoroark, Scizor, and Scyhter; four Pokemon who are super effective against Psychic-types like Mewtwo; and I still can't defeat Mega Mewtwo Y, and I'm trying as hard as I can!"

Button triggered Scizor and Scyther's abilities that increased their power when he was almost out of moves, but the blocks appeared and boxed Button in again, causing him to run out of moves again.

"GRRRRR! DENKALITH!" Button exclaimed, "Why can't I get past this level!"

Button stopped for a moment, and said thoughtfully, "You know, maybe it's because I'm not playing it in 3D. Maybe the 3D will help me get more into it, kinda immerse myself a bit more, yeah."

Button turned up the 3D slider, but nothing happened.

"What?" Button said flatly, moving the slider up and down, "There's no 3D. . . A 3DS game has no 3D . . ."

Button looked up slowly, his face a picture of pure shock. Then, he shouted, "WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!"

Button promptly quit the game and went back to the Home screen.

Button sighed, "Well, this where I'd end things . . ." Button took another drink from his juice box, and then said, "But . . . there is another 3DS Free-to-Play Pokemon game. Pokemon Rumble: World."

Button got up and walked over to his Wii and turned it on. He used the Wii Remote to select Pokemon Rumble and started it up. "But first, a little background. Pokemon Rumble started as a WiiWare game where you control toy Pokemon. Toy Pokemon don't level up, and they can only know two moves. The only way to get stronger Toy Pokemon is to catch them. How do you catch them? By having your Toy Pokemon hack, slash, and beat up big groups of enemies and hope one of them falls over for you to pick up." Button controlled a Pikachu hich mowed down mobs of enemy Toy Pokemon. Large coins were dropped by defeated Toy Pokemon. "You could also earn in game coins that you used to teach new moves and stuff. The first game was just about trying to win at more difficult battle royales. The game had two sequels, Pokemon Rumble Blast on the 3DS, and Pokemon Rumble U for the WiiU. These games had a bit more story and better multiplayer features. But unfortunately, we're not talking about them. You had to buy those games. They had to give you your bits' worth. No, we're talking about the free-to-play version Pokemon Rumble. Pokemon Rumble World on the 3DS. Imagine hearing about how fun Pokemon Rumble Blast is, and then getting Pokemon Rumble World by accident! That would stink real bad!"

Button turned off his Wii and went back to his 3DS, and he started up Pokemon Rumble World.

"The plot of the game is that your Pomii has to get an army of Pokemon Toys for the king in order to defeat some evil wizard guy who wants to take over the world or something, I don't really care. Like Pokemon Shuffle, there are gems you can buy with real money. You can also get them by getting other Pomiis from the internet to appear in your game, one for every five. Sometimes a Pomii will give you one. You can also earn gems by beating the missions the king gives you in a certain way, like using only one Pokemon type, destroying a certain number of objects, getting a certain combo, or not destroying something."

"What do you do with these gems? Well, I don't know, how about EVERYTHING!"

Button sighed as he rubbed his forehead with his eyes closed. "Let me put it this way. You want to play more levels? you have to pay 10, 20, or 50 gems just to get a hot air balloon to take you to a level. You want to be able to hold onto more 100 Toy Pokemon? First you pay 2 gems for every 30 extra Pokemon, then 4 for every 60, and it goes up and up like that. You can't play if you have too many Pokemon by the way, and you end up having to release them after every level unless you pay a whole bunch of gems just to increase your storage. And since there's over 700 Pokemon, you will have no choice but to pay a whole lot of gems as the game progresses. You want new clothes for your Pomii? Gems. You want to boost your Toy Pokemon's attack, defense, and speed? Either gems or in game coins you earn by knocking out Pokemon or releasing the Pokemon you have."

"Oh, and you know that stupid heart thing from Shuffle? Well here, after you use a balloon to go to a level, you have to wait anywhere between 15 minutes to 1 hour for the balloon to be re-inflated! Or you could just pay gems. Oh, and don't get me started on what has to be the most frustrating part of the whole game!"

Button selected a balloon, and four islands appeared with Pokemon on them. One island had Latias on it, with three red stars.

"Each balloon has between 3 and 5 levels to it. When an island has stars on it, that means you can fight and possibly catch rare Pokemon, like Latias over there. So, you'd think I'd just select the level with Latias on it, right? Well, no, I can't. Because level selection works on a roulette system."

Button face hoofed and groaned, "What were they thinking?"

"So, basically, a light spins around, and you have to just hope that it stops on the level you want. You'd think that you could just hit the stop button right when it goes over the level you want and it should stop there. But it turns out, it only works out like that half the time! So you'll end up either hitting it right on the level only for it to stop too far or too short, or hitting right after or before the level only for it land on the one you hit instead of the one you wanted! I can't figure out how it works, it makes me feel like an idiot!"

Button frowned and said, "But guess what. Guess how you can make it stop on the one you want. Come on, guess!"

Button paid two gems and was able to select the three stared level with Latias.

"That's right, gems. Which means it'll take longer to get enough to get more level balloons, meaning you'll be playing the same couple of stages for a long time!"

Button looked up from the game and said, "Okay, so, is there anything good about this game? Well . . . the 3D works!"

Button turned on the 3D.

"Yeah, that's nice. It actually looks pretty good too. There's also those Pomiis that you can get a steady stream of free gems from. Maybe around 10 gems a week. Maybe more if you have a lot of friends who play the game, but if you ask me, true friends don't let friends play this awful game! And even the Pomiis themselves are stupid!"

Button went into a level and saw a Pomii being attacked by Toy Pokemon.

"You defeat the Pokemon that are attacking a Pomii, and the Pomii will give you a gem or coins as a reward. The Pomii will also follow you around and toss you health potions, X attacks, X defenses, or X speeds. They're really helpful, sure, but the Pomiis' AI has got to be the dumbest AI I've ever experienced in a video game. The Pomiis never run away from attacking Pokemon, they are always in the path of an attack, and they are just so annoying! In the levels, I just let them die, because I can get along fine without the bonus items. But when the king gives you a mission where you have to protect the Pomii, it's gotta be the most frustrating thing since Doctor and Derpy's Excellent Adventure on the NES."

Button was controlling a Durant through a level where he had to protect his Pomii of himself. The Button Pomii kept getting hit by enemy attacks, but kept following the Durant into danger.

"No, no, no! Get out of there! You're gonna get killed!" Button shouted in frustration.

The Button Pomii finally lost all of his health, causing the mission to end in failure.

"DENKALITH!" Button shouted before rage quitting and turning off the 3DS, "These games are pure evil! The only way to enjoy these games is to keep putting money in them! It's like playing a game in a video arcade where you have to keep putting bits into the machine. The only difference is that those games would be cheaper than these two Cornish Pixie Puss filled Pokemon Games! These foul flaming free-to-play piles of pounded, puke flavored Pokeblock! Nintendo needs to learn some lessons from Wizard 101 and Warframe. If you're going to give out a game for free, that make it so that your loyal fans can play all they want for free without you draining them dry like a vampire from Castlemania II!"

Button Mash turned his 3DS back on, went into the settings, and erased both Pokemon Shuffle and Pokemon Rumble World.

"Take that!" he said triumphantly before turning the 3DS back off and walking off, finishing off his juice box.

* * *

 ** _Author's Note:_**

 ** _Credits: AVGN: Game Over (Intro Music) by Gavin MacLean._**

 ** _To tell you the truth, the games are not THAT bad. They're playable without having to pay any money, but it's really annoying at how often you get stuck having to wait for coins or gems just to beat a level thatyou just can't get past without any bonuses that require some kind of payment. (9000 coins just to beat Mega Mewtwo Y!)._**

 ** _Stay tuned for the next chapter: Spectrobes_**

* * *

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 _Loading code . . ._

 _01010100 01101000_

 _01100101 00100000_

 _01100011 01100001_

 _01101011 01100101_

 _00100000 01101001_

 _01110011 00100000_

 _01100001 00100000_

 _01101100 01101001_

 _01100101 00101110_

 _decoding . . ._

 _. . ._

 _COMPLETE:_

*Tinyurl - k6ccnqb*


	2. Chapter 2

Button Mash slipped a Super Mareo Advance 4 game cartridge into the Game Boy Player on his Gamecube and began playing Super Mareo Bros. 3 on his TV.

 _He's gonna play some games from past_

 _And also recent games while they last_

Sweetie Belle stepped out from behind him while singing.

 _He'd rather have. . ._

 _A Changeling Drone. . ._

 _Spit a glob of green slime in his ear!_

Button Mash slammed his keyboard angrily as his Captain got stuck in a glitch a level in Spore: Galactic Adventures.

 _He'd rather drink. . ._

 _A freezing milkshake. . ._

 _And get the worst brain freeze of the year!_

Button spat a huge gush of milkshake right into Diamond Tiara's face.

 _He's the most awesome gamer you'll ever behold_

 _He's the awesome Nintendo Colt_

Button slammed a Lucario Amiibo onto the WiiU game pad.

 _He's the awesome Microsoft, Sony Colt_

 _He's The Awesome Video Game Colt!_

Button made roaring noises and battle cries as he playfully hit a Spyro Skylander figure against a Hulk Disney Infinity figure.

 **Episode 8: Spectrobes on Nintendo DS**

"I _**hate**_ this game," Button said angrily, "And what makes it worse is that I thought it was gonna be awesome. I mean, just look at the cover!"

"You got a guy with a sword and two monsters on either side of him. It looks like the coolest thing ever! And it was made by _Jupiter_ , one of the developers that made _Kingdom Hearts_! Yeah, it's a Disney game, by the way. So, everything about this game sounds like it should be awesome, right? Well, boy, were _sooooooo_ many ponies fooled!"

Button looked at the came card and said, "Well, let's get this over with."

Button put the game into his 3DS and said, "By the way, I should probably mention, when you play this game on a 3DS, and try to turn system off while you're still in the game, the system actually stays on for a few seconds after the screen goes dark. I don't know why it happens. Maybe the game knows its bad and is afraid you'll never play it again."

The title screen game up, and Button commented, "What's with those Japanese symbols on top of the title? Is that how you spell Spectrobes in Japanese? Speaking of which, you're probably wondering what a Spectrobe is? Well guess what, it's pretty much a Pokemon. Yeah, it's another one of those games that try recreate one of the most popular video game franchises of all time. But would you believe, this game actually takes the concept of Pokemon, and makes it _boring_?"

"Well the plot of the game is that you're a Space Ranger Pony named Rallen who has to defeat these aliens called the Krawl. You fly around in a spaceship going to seven different planets finding Spectrobes and using them to fight the Krawl."

On the screen, Button controlled Rallen and had him walk around the level.

"The game is a 3D world, more like _Doctor and Derpy's Excellent Adventure_ than Super Mareo 64. You're probably wondering how you get Spectrobes. Well, it turns out there are no living Spectrobes in existence, and you have to bring their fossils back to life. That _could_ have been clever, if Pokemon hadn't done that first!"

The bottom screen showed a fossil in the ground.

"You use the stylus to drill away the dirt from the fossil. You have to be careful, or you'll break the fossil. It's really tedious and not very fun. Was this game supposed to be a training tool for paleontologists?"

"And after you find the fossil, then you have to walk _alllll_ the way back to your space ship to awaken it. And this is when you realize the game was doomed from the start. First of all, the fossils are always gonna be far away from the ship, so unless you buy a bunch of jet pack power-ups, you're gonna be walking a whole lot in this game. And even then, the jet packs only take you back to the ship, meaning you'll have to walk all the back into the level after you've awakened your fossils. And second, well, just look at how you're supposed to find the fossils!"

Button moved Rallen a few steps. He hit the R button, and a glowing ring grew around Rallen. Button moved Rallen a few more steps, and made the ring appear again. Button repeated this three more times before speaking. "That . . . is the game. That's pretty much the whole game. You walk around hoping that your radar will pick up a fossil or something." Button frowned at the screen, "And you _know_ what that's like. Yeah, that's like _Castlemania II: Simon's Quest_ , where you have to throw holy water all over the place. But you know what? I think this game is actually _more_ frustrating than Simon's Quest! In this game, you _have to_ keep going back to the same areas over and over again and you _have to_ check for anything new. At least in Simon's Quest the whole game wasn't tossing holy water. But I am not joking when I say you have to check the ground over and over again in every level in the entire game."

Button picked up his juice box and drank some. He put the box down and said, "Okay, how about we move onto to bringing the Spectrobe to life. You wanna know how you do that? You have to talk into the microphone."

The screen showed the fossil in the machine, and a meter appeared in the bottom screen.

Button frowned with eyes wide with disbelief. "What were they thinking? Imagine playing this game in a doctor's waiting room or while waiting for a train or at _any_ public place. You'd look like an idiot talking to you game. Talking doesn't even work that well because for some of the Spectrobes, you have to keep your volume at a certain level for 3 seconds, and that's impossible."

Button brought the game up to his mouth and said, "Blowing on it actually kinda works better." Button blew onto the game, and the game played a tune as the Spectrobe came out of the fossil.

Button froze with a wide-eyed stunned expression on his face, and his left eye twitched. "Wait a minute, that's even dumber than talking to the game! Who the hay _blows_ on a video game!? What the hay were they thinking?!"

Button looked back at the screen and said, "But wait, surely the actual _battles_ must be fun, right? Well, in order to start a battle, you have to walk . . . into a purple tornado. . ."

Button moved Rallen into a purple tornado in the level. The game then turned into a full 3D section where Rallen and his two Spectrobes were standing across from three Krawl monsters.

"You saw that, right? You fight monsters inside purple tornadoes! In Pokemon, it makes sense that they're hiding in tall grass. But _purple tornadoes?_ How does that even work? Do you get transported to some battle dimension? Does the tornado turn into the three monsters? The battle transitions in the Mareo role playing games make more sense. At least there you could actually see what monsters you'll be fighting when you touch them."

Button smiled, "But hey, the battling is in real time! In Pokemon you have to wait your turn and hope your Pokemon dodged the attack on its own. But here, you can actually move out of the way and attack more than one time in a row. That's good, right?"

Button frowned, "WRONG! The battles have no strategy whatsoever. You control Rallen, and your two Spectrobes follow him. You make them attack by hitting the L and R buttons. You can charge up attack power with the A button, and can even launch a super attack when at full power. The Y button toggles a special attack. And . . . that's it. All you have to do is keep everyone for getting hit too many times. In other words, run around like a chicken with a paper bag over its head."

Button moved Rallen around as he kept hitting the A, Y, L, and R buttons madly. One of the enemy monsters hit Rallen, and Button quickly tried to moved Rallen behind the two Spectrobes.

"Grrrr! These Spectrobes won't protect me! And if Rallen dies, even if the Spectrobes are at full strength, it's game over! Then why is Rallen even in here? Why isn't he standing in the background out of danger? He's totally useless! Yeah, that's right. The cover is a complete lie! Yeah, he does have a sword and a gun, but those weapons barely do any damage at all. It's like trying to fight Tirek with a stick and a water gun. Sure, you can buy stronger ones, which I did, but there was still no real difference. You'd probably have to grind for, like, _weeks_ just to get enough money to buy a weapon that will do anything! Sure, I know the whole point of the game is using Spectrobes to fight, but the cover makes it look like you can do _some_ damage yourself, and wouldn't it be really gratifying to fight alongside your Spectrobes without worrying about getting killed in 4 or 5 hits?"

"Everything about this game is tedious and un-fun. After you awaken a Spectrobe _'child'_ , you have to wait for it to grow in a the nursery. You can also use a child to help search for things in the ground. Adult Spectrobe get experience and level up just like Pokemon, but if you want to get anywhere fast, you need to feed them Minerals, which are kind of like Vitamins in the Pokemon games. You find them the same way you find fossils, by walking around and searching for them."

Button discovered a mineral in the ground and quickly excavated it. It was a yellow C- shaped crystal.

"Nice. A Health C mineral. This will increase the Spectrobe's health," Button said with a bit of optimism in his voice. But then he frowned miserably and said, "Now, guess how you feed your Spectrobe the mineral? Do you go into the menu, select the mineral, and choose an option that says _'feed'_ or something like in Pokemon? NO, you have to walk _allllll_ the way back to your spaceship, go into the Lab, put you Spectrobe into the Nursery, select the minerals you want to feed to them, drop the minerals into the Nursery, literally watch the Spectrobe eat it, then take the Spectrobe back out and put it back into your party."

Button's hooves shook as he breath in and out heavily, his brow furrowing in anger. The propeller on his hat kicked into overdrive as Button dropped his 3DS to the floor and shouted, "WHY DID THEY MAKE IT SO COMPLICATED!? It's like they were so obsessed with making it different from Pokemon that they created a game that doesn't feel like a game; it feels like a _job_. Like, I should be getting _paid_ for this! It's labor! It's hard work! It's not fun! I'm still stuck in a cave level that's not even half way through the game. I _can't_ get past these three monsters without Rallen getting killed. Maybe if I could just play with my Spectrobes, I could win with maybe one Spectrobe left and just heal my other once after. But because this character is so _stupid_ , I can't do that! Instead the game expects me to just grind for experience points and minerals for my Spectrobes, and money to buy Rallen stuff to keep him from dying so easily! I understand that they wanted to do something original, but there's a difference between _'original'_ and _'impossibly tedious'_! _**DENKALITH!**_ "

Button shouted in rage as he ripped the Spectrobes game card out of his 3DS, threw it on the ground, and stomped on it repeatedly. Suddenly, he stopped stomping, a look of sudden realization in his eyes.

"Wait a minute. . . what am I doing? . . . This is wrong. . ." he said softly.

Button quietly left the room.

He turned holding a drill and wearing a mischievous smile on his face.

 _"Dinie ink, dukai,"_ he said darkly to the game card on the floor, and he turned on the drill.


	3. Chapter 3

**_I was originally gonna make a pony parody and say "Pac-Mare," but it's his 35th anniversary, so he deserves a little more respect than that._**

* * *

Button Mash tried juggling three yellow balls, but quickly dropped them and then tripped over them.

 _He's gonna play some games from past_

 _And also recent games while they last_

As Button stood playing on a Pac-Man and Galaga arcade cabinet as Sweetie Belle sang behind him.

 _He'd rather have. . ._

 _A Changeling Drone. . ._

 _Spit a glob of green slime in his ear!_

Button ate the cherries off Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon's sundaes, much to their shock and anger. Button quickly threw white sheets over their heads and ran.

 _He'd rather drink. . ._

 _A freezing milkshake. . ._

 _And get the worst brain freeze of the year!_

Button was chased through town by the fillies under the sheets. Button and Sweetie Belle turned the tables on them by pelting the bullies with blue paint bombs.

 _He's the most awesome gamer you'll ever behold_

 _He's the awesome Nintendo Colt_

Button ran out of the video game store with a Pac-Man Amiibo.

 _He's the awesome Microsoft, Sony Colt_

 _He's The Awesome Video Game Colt!_

Button bit into an orange without peeling it, only to quickly spit it out and make a comical face.

 **Episode 9: Pac-Man's 35th Anniversary Specail**

"I'd like to start off by wishing Pac-Man a happy 35th Anniversary and many more," Button said, "I'd also love to have a Pac-Man and Galaga arcade cabinet in my room. . . but I don't."

"Pac-Man is a humble, simple game. Which makes sense, because it's an old game, but a good game. It's very addictive and it keeps pushing you to get a high score."

"So yeah, I may not have an arcade cabinet, but I _do_ have a laptop," Button said with a grin, "That's a good thing about simple, old, good games. Emulations of them are easy to come by."

Button turned his laptop on and started up a game of Pac-Man.

"Namco and first released Pac-Man in Japan on May 22, 1980. It came here in October of 1980. I'm pretty sure nearly everypony knows how to play Pac-Man. You go around a maze eating dots while trying to avoid four ghosts that kill you if you run into them. There are four bigger flashing dots called Power Pellets, and if you eat them, the ghosts turn blue, and Pac-Man can eat blue ghosts for extra points. You can also eat Bonus Fruit for extra points. There's a Cherry, a Strawberry, an Orange, an Apple, a Melon, a Galaxian Starship, a Bell, and a Key."

Button shrugged, "Yeah, I know, three of those aren't fruits, but let's just go with it."

Button played through the level, eating dots, chomping ghosts, and gobbling bonus fruits. He's clearly enjoying the game.

". . . . . . .OH! The review! Sorry. Okay, so you'd probably think there's not much to talk about. I mean, it's just Pac-Man, right? Well, you'd be wrong to this this way. There'a a lot more to Pac-Man than you think."

"First, the ghosts. Many people know that they have names. The red one is Blinky the Shadow. The pink one is Pinky the Speedy. The light blue one is Inky the Bashful. And the Orange one is Clyde the Pokey. The title screen tells you the name, so it's not really much of a secret."

Button's eyes widened, "But would you believe the ghosts _don't_ move randomly? Yeah, they're actually programmed to move a certain way! Blinky always goes after Pac-Man directly, and get faster when you eat enough dots. Pinky always go four spaces ahead of Pac-Man. Inky always goes to the spot twice the distance from _Blinky_ to two spaces in front of Pac-Man, in that direction. Clyde directly chases Pac-Man like Blinky, but when Clyde gets within an eight-space radius of Pac-Man, he actually runs away to the lower-left corner of the maze like a big coward. It's like, you have to actually _try_ to get killed by him. But since you have four other ghost moving around the maze, it might actually be easier to run into Clyde than you think."

"So yeah, in order to get a high score, you have to survive for a long time. And in order to do that, you have figure out where the ghosts are gonna go so you can avoid them. Pac-Man was designed to be a never ending game. You just play until you run out of lives while trying to get a high score. The longer you played, the faster the ghosts would move. The ghosts even become immune to the Power Pellets! But it turns out that a programming error causes level 256 to glitch out. Half of the screen gets covered in random symbols, making it impossible to beat."

"This sets up perfect score for Pac-Man: 3,333,360 points. But imagine beating 255 levels of this game, let alone perfectly! That's crazy! You know how hard this game is when everything starts moving so fast and the Power Pellet's time of effect gets shorter and shorter?!"

As Button plays, Pac-Man gets caught by Blinky and the game ends.

Button shrugged, "Well, that's Pac-Man, but we can't talk about Pac-Man without talking about the game it's so often paired with: _Galaga_."

Button started up Galaga and started playing.

"There's really not much to say about this game. You're flying a space ship trying to destroy an army of alien bugs. It's just a 2D space shooter, but a good one. One of the coolest parts about it is sometimes a 'boss' Galaga, _it's not really a boss, it's the same size and strength as the other enemies,_ will come and steal your ship with a tractor beam. This is bad because it makes you loose a life, but if you are able to destroy the 'boss' Galaga with another life, then the stolen ship is freed and attaches to your ship, giving you double fire power!"

Button demonstrated this, and then became firing away at the enemies with a barrage of lazers.

"Yeah! Take _that_!" Button said.

"I've also heard that Galaga also has a programming error like Pac-Man. Apparently, when you beat Stage 255, it starts over at Stage 0. Sometimes the whole thing crashes. Either way, Pac-Man and Galaga are totally connected. They're so connected that in Super Smash Bros, Pac-Man can use the 'boss' Galaga's tractor beam to grab opponents."

A clip of Pac-Man drawing in Bowser with a tractor beam played.

Button stopped playing and picked up a juice box. "Well, this is where I'd end things. . ." Button took a long sip of juice, and then said, "But if we're gonna talk about Pac-Man, then we just gotta bring up Ms. Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man."

"These two games try and shake up the Pac-Man formula with a few differences. In Ms. Pac Man, there are actually four different mazes, the ghosts move around more randomly, the bonus fruits bounce around the maze, and Clyde is replaced by a ghost named Sue. The game also has three cut-scenes."

Button nodded solemnly, "Yeah, an arcade game with cut-scenes. This has to be one of the first cut-scenes in video game history! Anyway, the cut-scenes show Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man meeting each other and then getting Jr. Pac-Man from the stork. But what bugs me is that Ms. Pac-Man has the same glitch on level 256."

Button is confused at that, "What were they thinking? How did they not fix this by now?"

"Well, Jr. Pac-Man changes the formula even more. In this game, there are _seven_ mazes, and they're actually twice the width of the monitor, meaning the game actually side scrolls to keep up with Jr. Pac-Man. There are also six Power Pellets instead of four, and when the bouncing Bonus Fruit touches dots, they grow big and make you go slower. The Fruit also makes the Power Pellets explode for some reason. And if that's not cryptic enough, Clyde gets replaced _again_ this time by some ghost named Tim. Gosh, Clyde just can't catch a break."

"And if _that's_ not cryptic enough, the cut-scenes in this game show Jr. Pac-Man making friends with a ghost named Yum-Yum. . . who is apparently Blinky's. . . . duaghter?. . . I . . .?"

Button grabbed his juice box and drank it all in once go. "What were thinking!? That blows my mind on so many levels!"

Button sighed, "Okay, that's more than enough Pac-Man for one day. But that doesn't mean I'm actually _done_ with Pac-Man on this show. I'm sure many of you wanna know how I feel about the _Ghostly Adventures_ Pac-Man platforming games."

Button looked over at his PC and said, "Well, just let me buy and download the game off of Steam and I'll tell ya. . ."

 **To be continued. . .**


	4. Chapter 4

Button Mash clicked through all the games on sale on Steam, and then fell out of his chair completely overwhelmed while waving his forehoves wildly.

 _He's gonna play some games from past_

 _And also recent games while they last_

As Button sat playing Donkey Kong Country on the SNES, Sweetie Belle sang behind him.

 _He'd rather have. . ._

 _A Changeling Drone. . ._

 _Spit a glob of green slime in his ear!_

Button blew into a game cartridge in an attempt to get it to work in his Joy Boy.

 _He'd rather drink. . ._

 _A freezing milkshake. . ._

 _And get the worst brain freeze of the year!_

Button picked up a copy of _The Eternal Duelist Soul_ for the Game Boy Advances. He looked in the mirror and screamed when he saw that he suddenly had crazy Anime hair.

 _He's the most awesome gamer you'll ever behold_

 _He's the awesome Nintendo Colt_

Button wrestled with Rumble in the video game store over a Lucario Amiibo.

 _He's the awesome Microsoft, Sony Colt_

 _He's The Awesome Video Game Colt!_

Button threw is controller down and shook his hoof at the TV screen.

 **Episode 10: Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures**

Button Mash was sitting in his room with a horrified look on his face. The only movement is his constantly spinning propeller hat. After a very long, uncomfortable pause during which Button doesn't even blink, he finally begins.

"I am a logical colt," Button said, "I play games like _Tetris_ , _Portal_ , and even _Where In Time is Carmen Sandiago_. Sure, I play wild fantasy games like Mareo, Zelda, Sonic the Hedgehog, and even _Conker's Bad Fur Day_ ; but I still got fairly firm grasp on the perceptions of reality. No matter what game I play, I still live in the realm of the real world."

Button took another short pause, then he inhaled deeply and shouted, "UNTIL _TODAY_! When that reality was _CHALLENGED_ by _Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures!_ "

Button grabbed his juice-box and drank it all in about 5 seconds. He tossed the empty box away and said, "Okay, Imagine coming across a pony who was not only insane, but also spent too much time at a salt-lick, drank way too much cider, and took 600 bottles of Skooma nearly completely destroying his brain."

Button leaned towards the camera and shouted, "He would be _NORMAL_ compared to _Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures_! So, _what's_ wrong with this game?"

Button face-hoofed hard and said, "What's _right_ with this game!? That's the shorter answer! It's actually hard to come up with words to describe how crazy this show is, it is _that_ crazy. So, rather than talk about it, let's just try and play it. The key word being _try_ of course!"

Button went to his PC and started up the game. The title screen came up, and the originally arcade Pac-Man theme played.

Button nodded, "Well, okay, that's a good sign. They have the original music-."

A rock remix suddenly started playing.

"Denkalith," Button said darkly.

"Now, before we begin, I should probably mention that I've never seen the TV show this game is based off of. But a game should be good no matter if you've seen the show or not. So the game starts with, what else, a cut-scene introducing us to Pac-Man's world."

"Now, I don't mind the fact that they gave Pac-Man arms and legs, but I don't know if I like his voice. He sounds like Tails from the Sonic the Hedgehog games. Anyway, Pac-Man's world is inhabited by other rounded Pac-People of different shapes and colors. We start out with Pac-Man and his two friends who are talking to a green, round, Professor E-Gad rip off. The Professor tells us that we need to collect Energy Orbs in order to power these magical Globes that will apparently take us to these Temples. I assume the the orbs are gonna be like the dots Pac-Man ate in the original game. But why exactly do we need to go to these Temples?"

Button shrugged with a look of desperation on his face.

"I don't know! I have no idea, at all! Do I need to watch the show? That's not fair, why are you forcing me to watch your cartoon like this?"

"And as if I weren't confused enough, four ghosts suddenly come in out of nowhere! Now, I'm thinking that we're gonna have some action, but nope! It turns out these ghosts are good guys!"

Button stared in disbelief, "What the hay were they thinking?! That's like making a Mareo game were Mareo teams up with Koopas and Goombas!"

The title screens for _Paper Mareo_ and _Paper Mareo and the Thousand Year Door_ appear.

Button blushes with embarrassment.

"Okay then, never mind. . ."

"So we learn that the evil ghost king named Betrayus. . . ." Button blinked, "Really? Betrayus? That's the villains name? That's the best they could do? What was their second choice, 'Evilus'? 'Badguyus'? Well, anyway, we discover that Betrayus sent his entire ghost army to attack the city, and also stole the Professor's freeze ray, which I guess he wants to use to take over the world or something."

Button shrugged, "So yeah, that's the story. Pac-Man has to go and stop him. Sounds kinda simple. . .Too simple. . ."

The first level begins and Button takes control of Pac-Man as he walks around the city as hundreds of ghosts are flying around in the background. There are huge chunks of ice as well as fires burning as Pac-Man collects yellow energy orbs that are scattered around the level.

"Okay, so as you can see, this game is a platformed, kinda like Mareo. Pac-Man has a Chomp attack that actually propels him forward a bit, and he can double jump, which comes in handy in this game, because there are a lot of areas where if you fall-."

 _"Get Pac-Man!" the game shouted as a ghost arrived to attack Pac-Man._

Button moaned and buried his face in his hooves. "Ooooooooooh, NOOOOO!"

As Button moved Pac-Man away from the ghosts, he said, "It's one of those games where someone is always talking! I hate games that do that! I mean, sure, if you're fighting a boss, some banter is fun, but imagine how annoying playing Mareo would be if all the Goombas kept taunting you?"

"And what's really weird is that the game tells you can chomp ghosts, which makes no sense because _**everypony**_ knows that Pac-Man can't eat ghosts without eating a Power Pellet first. I mean, let's pretend that I know nothing about Pac-Man and I decide to try to eat this ghost."

Button went over to the ghost and used the Chomp attack. To Button shock, Pac-Man ate the ghost in an instant.

Button's jaw dropped. "WHAT!? That's impossible! They couldn't even get _that_ right?"

Pac-Man ran up to three ghosts and chomped them in rapid succession.

"But wait, it gets worse! It turns out that Pac-Man's Chomp is more like Sonic's Homing Attack. If you stand near a bunch of ghosts and hit the button like crazy, Pac-Man will zoom over to all of them and go on an eating chain. What were they thinking, were they just making it up as they went along?"

Button frowned and said, "And what's this special ability Pac-Man has anyway?"

Button activated Pac-Man's special attack, and Pac-Man shouted "Booga-Booga!" at a bunch of ghosts, causing them to turn blue and cower and fear.

Button looked at the screen in shock. Then he ranted, "How does that work!? I don't care how infamous Pac-Man is, if you're able to boldly fly in shouting _'get Pac-Man'_ , there's no way him shouting _'booga-booga'_ is gonna scare you and make it easier for you to get eaten. Even Fluttershy is braver than that!"

"And you know what else? Since you can just jump at them and Chomp wildly to defeat the ghosts, there's really no point in even using this worthless special ability. You can beat this entire game without using that stupid ability _once_. Maybe if you could only eat a ghost after you've scared them, _like in the original Pac-Man games,_ then this ability would make sense. But nope! It's just pointless!"

Pac-Man went into some kind of tube and went flying through it.

 _"OOOOOOOHHHHH-YEAH!" Pac-Man cheered._

"And Pac-Man won't shut up either. . ." Button moaned.

"Well, believe it or not, there actually _are_ Power Pellets in this game, only they're called Power Berries here. Well, what happens when I eat them?"

Pac-Man ate a blue Power Berry, and he turned into Ice-Pac and fire a freeze ray.

Button looked like he was about to cry. "Oh . . . no . . ."

Pac-Man ate a red Power Berry, and he turned into Fire-Pac and threw a fire ball.

Button covered his face with his forehoves. "Noooooooooo. . ."

Pac-Man ate a grey Power Berry, and he turned into Magnet-Pac and a "ghost-magnet" came out of his mouth.

Button sat there breathing heavily for a while, then he looked up and said with great sadness, "They turned him into Kirby. . . . I mean. . . . . ** _LOOK AT HIM!_** He's Kirby! He eats enemies and then eats something that makes him change into a random form that helps him eat more enemies. Don't get me wrong, I like Kirby! Kirby games are fun! But I don't wanna play Kirby right now, I wanna play Pac-Man! If I wanted to play Kirby, I'd play Kirby! And some of these forms don't even add up! I mean, watch this:"

Pac-Man ate a green Power Berry, and he turned into Chameleon -Pac and shot out his long sticky tongue.

Button jumped, looking _very_ confused, "What?! Chameleon?! C-chameleon?! What?! What?! What?! . . . Chameleon, what?! I don't care how fun it is to eat up ghosts with that tongue, you cannot turn _Pac-Man_ into a chameleon. How did you even come to that conclusion?!"

Button smacked his forehead and said, "I mean what's next? He's gonna chomp an ice cream machine and a burger is gonna come out?!"

Pac-Man chomps an ice cream machine, and a burger does come out of it.

Button's eyes went wide a coins. "WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!?"

"How can you get a burger out of an ice cream machine!? Why are you even chomping ghosts if you can get burgers but of ice cream machines? It does _not_ add up!"

"I mean, _Denkalith!_ How do you even advertise a game like this? I mean, what did the commercials look like?"

* * *

 _Hey kids! **Conker's Bad Fur Day** making too much sense for ya? Then play **Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures**. You'll love this cosmic out-of-body torture of your senses. It's like a Japanese show in English, only you still have no idea what's going on. You must be at least **this** stupid to watch._

 _A photo of Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon appeared._

* * *

"And not only is the game insane, it's also one of the _laziest_ games I've ever played! I mean, they made the four ghosts in the opening cut-scene different and unique, but the enemy ghosts all look the same except for color! How cheap are these losers? They couldn't even give each color ghost a unique look?"

Pac-Man jumped and chomped on the long tail of a black ghost which carried him around.

"The only different ghosts are these black ones that you need to use to get across gaps."

Pac-Man suddenly ate the ghost and plummeted into the chasm.

"Denkalith," Button grumbled.

After Pac-Man returned to the checkpoint, Button glared at the screen and said, "Oh, and don't get me started on the level design! They give you six worlds, right? They give you a city, ancient ruins, lava world, a combination ice and lava word, and _are you ready for this_. . . ANOTHER city and ANOTHER lava world! . . . .Denkalith!"

Button sighed, "Well, at the end of each level, you get a Bonus Fruit. . . or zucchini. . . which is clearly an attempt to try and stay true to the original game. Too little too late for that."

Pac-Man ate a bunch of cherries, and the belched out the eyes of all the ghosts he ate.

"Oh yeah, collecting ghost eyes gives you extra lives, I guess they're like coins, " Button said in disinterest, "Collecting the Energy Globes unlocks levels, which makes them more like Star Bits, only you can't shoot them at enemies, but whatever. You can also find these rare Zap Apple-like things called Slimetanium that can give you more hit points which are represented by hearts. What is this, Dungeon Dice Monsters? Anyway, eating food like cheese and burgers refills health."

"There's also these pies that not only fill all your health, but also give you an extra life. And believe me, you'll need them. It's not like the game is hard. It's just. . . cheap. I mean, it's easy to fall into a bottomless pit. Or even worse, you'll land in lava and be forced to watch Pac-Man bounce off of it like Mareo until he looses all of his hit points!"

Pac-Man bounced off of the lava's surface, covering his burnt behind with his hands.

"Come on! Come on!" Button said as he hit buttons in frustration, "Die already! Why couldn't this have been a bottomless pit instead!"

Pac-Man finally lost all his hit points, and the game restarted at a checkpoint. Unfortunately, Button was already holding the button to move, so Pac-Man walked right off the edge and back into the lava.

"NOOOOOO!" Button cried, "What were they thinking! WHY did they put a checkpoint _so close_ to the edge like that!? WHY!?"

Sweetie Belle quickly ran to Button's side and handed him a 12 ounce bottle of apple juice. Button snatched it and started gulping it down. He took a deep breath and said, "Thanks Sweetie Belle. Standby with another one. . ."

Sweetie Belle nodded and quickly walked off.

"Okay. . ." Button said calmly, "Maybe I need to relax in . . . the hub world. . . Yeah, this game has a hub world. It's actually Pac-Man's high school, which also has a high tech science lab in it. You can talk to his friends, the professor guy, the school bully, the teacher, the. . . President? Pac-Man's. . . pet. . . Fuzzbits. . . ? And the four ghosts from earlier."

 _"How's life, Clyde?" Pac-Man asked the orange ghost._

Button slammed the desk and leaned into the screen, "What!? It can't be!"

Button had Pac-Man talk to the other ghosts.

 _"How's it going, Pinky?"_

 _"What's up, Blinky?"_

 _"What's up, Inky?"_

Button leaned back and said, "They took the _main villains_ of the original game and made them good guys. . ."

Button whistled long and low. "Wow. . ." he said.

"Well, anyway, the hub world also has these arcade cabinets where you can play mini games on. You unlock them by collecting the bonus fruit at the end of levels, but you also have to collect giant silver coins you find in the main game to play them. Now, if they let you play the original Pac-Man games or maybe even Galaga, then that would be kinda cool. But instead, you have these really lame mini game where you drive these weird vehicles based on whatever fruit you use to unlock it. There's a cherry copter, a zucchini tank, stuff like that. You drive around, rescue people, shoot ghosts and bosses; just your standard mini game padding."

Button tilted his head and said, "And speaking of bosses, how are the bosses in the main game? Well, the last level of world one is a hedge maze, and when I say _maze_ , I mean a winding path with only a few branches with coins and slimetanium. There is no way you can get lost here. Anyway, at the end, there's a giant one-eyed ghost waiting for you that hits you with his tail. So, I guess his tail is his weak spot."

Pac-Man ran behind the ghost, bit his tail, and swallowed the ghost whole.

Button stared at the screen in shock, and then laughed and said, "I don't believe it! That must have been the easiest boss in video game history!"

"Okay, okay, to be fair, it turns out this enemy is _not_ a boss, just a really big enemy that shows up in groups in later levels. The _actual_ bosses are. . . okay I guess. They're not really creative or anything. Sometimes you'll be bouncing rocks back at giant living statues, or sometimes you'll be doing a challenge, like running around a barbecue grill that's on fire or throwing fireballs into the freeze ray that Betrayus stole."

Button controlled Ice Pac-Man as he ran around on platforms sticking out of an ocean of lava. A big red dragon spat lava balls at him from the distance.

"But to be honest, some of these bosses make no sense. Like, for one boss, you fight a dragon by freezing lava balls which he sucks back in like Kirby. Why would a dragon need to suck back in his own lava? What kind of dragon is this? And what's worse is that after you beat him and he sinks into the lava, _he actually shows up and taunts you in the later levels!_ It's like _'You think you beat me, huh? WELL SURPRISE, LOOSER! I'M RIGHT HERE!'_ "

Button went to the map and moved Pac-Man to the first level of the final world.

"But if you think _that's_ bad, then wait to you see what's waiting for you at _the beginning_ of the final world."

 _Betrayus flew down into view and said, "You did a good job keeping up, but your journey to the Temple of Mystery ends here!"_

Button smacked his forehead. " _That's_ Betrayus? That's the ultimate final bad guy? He's practically the same size as Pac-Man. He doesn't look intimating, he looks like a killer clown!"

 _My little pet is well trained. . . and very hungry. Isn't that right, Fluffy?" Betrayus said as a giant white three headed poodle appeared._

"Why is Cerberus a poodle?" Button asked in confusion.

The poodle suddenly into a werewolf looking breed.

"AHH!" Button said, jumping in fright.

The boss fight began, and Button moved Pac-Man around frantically.

"Well, the main problem with _all_ of the boss fights in this game is that it never tells you what to do. It doesn't even give you a hint! Sure, Omachao was annoying in the Sonic the Hedgehog games, but at least he let you know what you're supposed to do!"

"And, okay, most of the boss fights in this game are easy to figure out. Freeze the lava balls, hit the targets, whatever; but _this_ boss fight doesn't give you any hints at all! Am I supposed to bite the tail?"

Button had Pac-Man run behind Fluffy and chomp, but it only caused Pac-Man to take a hit.

"Okay, that didn't work, so what am I- OH DENKALITH!" Button shouted at Fluffy charged. He dodged the attack, and Fluffy ran into a pile of dirt. The dog dug out a bone and suddenly turned back into a poodle.

Button stared in disbelief. "How did they expect me to figure that out!? What, you guide it into a pile of dirt so it can dig out a bone and become vulnerable?"

"And if that's not cryptic enough, guess what? That only works for the first two hits! After you've bitten Fluffy's tail two times, then he spins around like crazy while three giant ghosts appear and gang up on you! Then in order to make Fluffy vulnerable, you have to eat the giant ghosts while they send shock-waves at you. But Fluffy only remains vulnerable for a few seconds, which means you have to make sure that Fluffy is near you when you eat the final ghost so that you can run and bite his tail before he starts spinning again, because if you don't get to him in time and he spins around again then the three giant ghosts come back and start attacking you and you have to eat them all over again! DENKALITH! . . . That's what it is!"

Button collapsed on his keyboard, on the cusp of hyperventilation. After he caught his breath, he sat back in his chair and said, "Okay. . . how about let's skip to the final level boss battle."

Pac-Man ran around an arena with pillars as Betrayus fired slow moving lazer balls out of a ray gun.

"First a freeze ray and now a death ray? What is this, _Dr. Adorable's Ask Along Blog_?" Button complained.

"Well, once again, they don't tell you how this battle works. For some reason, Pac-Man can't just chomp this guy even though he's not that much bigger than him. Anyway, after shooting off the lazer balls, Betrayus will shoot a fast lazer bullet. You need to get him to shoot the four crystal pillars so that it will reflect back at him. It causes the pillars to make shock waves, but they're easy to dodge. Seriously, the _final boss_ is _too easy!_ Fluffy was harder than this!"

After winning the boss battle, the death ray broke, and Pac-Man chomped Betrayus and spat out his eyes.

Button tossed up his fore hooves and said, "Oh, _NOW_ you can eat him! What a slap in the face!"

Button leaned towards the screen and said, "Well, maybe the story will at least have a good climax." Button went ahead and watched the final cut-scene.

 _"Do these new tablets have any new information on them about the Tree of Life?" Pac-Man asked._

 _"They say that the Tree of Life is the one source in the universe for Power Berries which are the source of all power of PacWorld!" the professor said._

 _Everyone pouted._

 _"But we already knew that!" the purple girl said._

 _"EVERYBODY knows that!" the big red guy said._

 _"Heh! well, I didn't say it was USEFUL information!" the professor said._

Button nervously stares at the screen with a forced smile for a few seconds, then snaps, pulls out his Nintendo Zapper and fires at the screen.

"THIS GAME SUCKS!" Button shouted, "THIS GAME SUCKS! THE STORY SUCKS! THE GAME PLAY SUCKS! IT ALL SUUUUUUCKS!"

An explosion appeared on the screen.

" _This_ is _crazy_!" Button shouted as he tossed away his zapper, "In every possible meaning of the word! Nothing about this game makes sense! It's PURE ORC SPIT! I mean, okay, to tell the truth, it's not as bad as _Doctor and Derpy's Excellent Adventure_ or _Wonderbolt Flee Flyers_ , but it's _Pac-Man_! How can anyone take such a classic video game character and totally ruin him! It's like they took Mario, Sonic, and Kirby and but them together, and that's actually _not_ a good thing! It sounds cool, but it's not cool! It's insane! The story is pointless! We don't learn anything or accomplish anything! The levels are just your standard fantasy world! _Sonic Colors_ was more creative!"

"And before anyone asks, _yes._ This game was made by Namco! _Namco! Namco put money into this! **LOOK AT IT!**_ "

Button buried his face in his hooves and said, "I can't believe I bought this game. I could've bought _FATE: The Cursed King_ or _Torchlight II_! But nope, I just _had_ to buy a combination Kirby and Super Mareo Galaxy rip off. I'm not saying you can't make a good Pac-Man 3D platformer. I'm pretty sure you can. But this game is _just. not. good._ "

Button jumped up and said, "Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta pee after drinking all that apple juice!"

Button quickly ran out of the room.

Sweetie Belle walked into the shot and called out angrily, "Hey, wait a minute! The game wasn't _that_ bad! I get it, it went against the theme and spirit of Pac-Man and the story was lame, and it was clearly meant to advertise the show, but it was still a fun innocent little game!It had good controls, and the bosses and minigames were entertaining at the very least. Sure, _I_ wouldn't buy it, but. . ."

Sweetie Belle seemed to quickly loose confidence in what she was saying. She sighed, "Whatever. . ."

* * *

 _ **Author's Note:**_

 _Nostalgia Critic- Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog_


	5. Chapter 5

Button Mash was wearing a Sonic the Hedgehog hat underneath his propeller beanie hat.

"I don't play Sonic games on the _Sonic Mega Collection Plus._ I play them on their original SEGA consoles," he said, and he took a sip from a white coffee travel container with the Nintendo logo on it.

 **HIPSTER SONIC! HIPSTER-HIPSTER SONIC!**

* * *

 _He's gonna play some games from past_

 _And also recent games while they last_

As Button sat playing as Sonic in _Super Smash Bros. Wii U_ , Sweetie Belle sang while standing behind him.

 _He'd rather have. . ._

 _A Changeling Drone. . ._

 _Spit a glob of green slime in his ear!_

In the middle of a play-through of Sonic Boom, the Wii U gamepad fell from Button's hooves as he stood staring at the screen in a near comatose state.

 _He'd rather drink. . ._

 _A freezing milkshake. . ._

 _And get the worst brain freeze of the year!_

Button placed his Bowser Skylander on the portal and roared as Bowser appeared in the game.

 _He's the most awesome gamer you'll ever behold_

 _He's the awesome Nintendo Colt_

Bowser walked in carrying his SEGA Genesis and SEGA Game Gear.

 _He's the Microsoft, Sony, SEGA Colt_

 _He's The Awesome Video Game Colt!_

Button threw is controller down and shook his hoof at the TV screen.

 **Episode 11: Sonic Labyrinth on the SEGA Game Gear**

"Today, we're gonna go back into the past, to the time of 8-Bit handheld gaming consoles, for a Sonic the Hedgehog SEGA Game Gear game called _Sonic Labyrinth_."

Button held up the game cartridge and looked at it curiously.

This game received a mostly negative reaction from critics, panned as one of the worst, if not _the worst_ Sonic the Hedgehog game of all time. But I'm sure that's just an exaggeration. This is a classic game! Way before the _Sonic 06's_ and _Sonic Booms_. Way before the laziness and corporate tie-ins. So how bad could it be?"

Button shrugged, but the cartridge into his SEGA Game Gear, and said, "Well. . . let's play it and see."

Button turned on the game, and the title screen appeared, showing Sonic rolling around paths and through doors. Then the menu screen came on, showing the options: _Normal Game, Time Attack, and Config._

"Okay, so, Normal Game," Button said as he selected the option.

Then the level title card appeared, and he read it aloud, "Labyrinth of the Sky, Zone 1-1, Good Luck- oh, thank you. . . . and here we go!"

Sonic walked out of the START gate onto a flat looking area.

"Okay, so it looks like they made a 3D looking world. Pretty ambitious for the time," Button said, sounding impressed, "Okay then, let's go, Sonic!"

Button used the directional pad to move Sonic, and noticed that the normally speedy blue hedgehog was walking . . . very . . . slowly. . .

"Come on, Sonic. . . ." Button said impatiently, "Come on, Sonic!"

After walking around really slowly for a bit, Button shook the Game Gear and shouted, "What's going on?! Why is he going so slow!? Is my copy of the game broken or something!?"

Button looked at the Game Gear's meager controls and said, "Maybe it's like the Mario games, and you need to hold a button to make him run."

The only other buttons the Game Gear had were the 1 and 2 buttons. Button held the 1 button, and Sonic revved up his famous Spin Dash.

"Okay, so the 1 button is for the Spin Dash," Button said. He let the button go, and Sonic went spinning wildly around the stage. "Oh man, I can't control him!" Button shouted as he mashed the directional pad until Sonic ground to a halt.

"Okay, so I guess 2 is the run button, right?" Button said. He held the 2 button, and Sonic revved up his Spin Dash again.

"WHAT!?" Button shouted, "The 1 and 2 buttons do _the exact same denkalithing thing!?_ How stupid were these programmers? Were they like: _'Duh, we only have three buttons on this thing, so lets waste one of them by making two of them do the exact same thing!'_ Those stupid orc-holes!"

Button paused the game and put the Game Gear down calmly and said in an even tone, "So. . . let me get this straight. . . we got a game from the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, a series starring a character who goes fast and attacks by jumping. . . where you _can't go fast_ . . . or jump for that matter- ** _WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!"_**

Button pressed his fore-hooves against the sides of his head and shouted, "I mean, it makes no sense! Imagine making a Mareo game where you can't jump or break blocks. Or a Mega Mare game where you can't shoot. Or a Kirby game where you can't inhale enemies. What's the point? Even _Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures_ still kept Pac-Man's basic ability to eat things."

Button picked the the instruction manual that game with them game and said, "What exactly is the _story_ of this game anyway?"

Button opened up the book and read a bit. Button let out a breath of disappointment and turned away in disbelief. Then he said, "Okay, get a load of this. Dr. Robotnik made these shoes that look just like Sonic's shoes that slow him down and keep him from jumping. He switched Sonic's shoes with the fake ones, and Sonic puts them on. the only way Sonic can take them off is if he gets all the Chaos Emeralds, which Robotnik has placed in a giant labyrinth he built."

Button dropped the manual and said, "Okay, first of all, if Robotnik has already found all the Chaos Emeralds, why doesn't he just use them all to make a super robot and attack Sonic directly!? Why did he hide them in this crazy labyrinth? Sure, then we wouldn't have a game, but not having this game would be a _good_ thing, because who the hay would wanna play a Sonic game where Sonic _can't run fast_!?"

Button picked the game back up and resumed. "But okay, let's just go with it. Maybe controlling Sonic using only the Spin Dash can work in a 3D point of view on a generally flat world."

Button moved Sonic around a bit by walking, and then aimed a Spin Dash across the stage.

"So, what do we got here? Flat world. Conveyor belts. Ice. A robot enemy. A key?"

Button had Sonic grab the key, and it appeared on the top of the screen next to tow other black spaces.

"Okay, so I guess I have to look for three keys in order to get through the level," Button said, "That's not too bad, I guess. It's clever and has possibilities. I could get on aboard with this. . . if the controls weren't so annoying!"

Button sent Sonic ricocheting around the area as he tried to Spin Dash Sonic in the right direction. "You can charge up the Spin Dash and control the direction, but then you just end up going too fast and either going past where you wanted to go, or just end up bouncing off a wall and ending up back where you started. And to make matter worse, there's a time limit! Collecting the keys gives you a bit more time, but it's still really annoying to have to worry about the time as you're bouncing around like crazy!"

Button moved Sonic onto a spring, which sent him to a separate area of the level.

"Maybe I should just not charge the Spin Dash as much," Button remarked.

Sonic rolled forward a bit slower, and lost momentum in the path of a robot.

"Oh no, oh no! Look out! Look out!" Button said as he panicked and fumbled with the controls. He didn't move in time, and the Button hit Sonic, causing him to drop the key, which went flying away from him.

"Denkalith! Oh, Celestia!" Button whined.

As Button navigated around the conveyor belts to find the keys, he remarked, "Ya know, I just realized something else. There aren't any rings in this game! Do the keys take the place as rings? Do you die instantly if you get hit without any keys? How does this game even work!?"

Button sighed, "Well, as you can see, the game is pretty straightforward. Collect the keys, get to the GOAL gate. Of course as the game goes along, you'll have to get through even more obstacles, like pits, enemies, conveyor belts, and other hazards. But you know what else stinks about this game? The art design. Yeah, forget the all the plants and backgrounds of Green Hill Zone, the ancient ruins of Sky Sanctuary, or the bright city lights of Casino Night Zone. Just have a bunch of checkerboard platforms with a solid color in the background. Yeah, that's just genius art direction!"

"Well, what about the boss battles?" Button asked.

Sonic walked out a gate and began rolling down a steep ramp with rings on it.

"Oh, so _now_ they decide to put rings in the game? Just for the boss fights?" Button said.

"Well, after the ring collecting mini-game, which sometimes has glass panels and spiked panels you have to dodge, you fall down a tube and into the boss arena. And boy do the bosses stink! All you do is Spin Dash into them while they throw stuff at you. And the worst boss has to be the boss of the Factory labyrinth. He's just a rectangle with spikes on the front! All you gotta do is walk behind him and Spin Dash into his back over and over! He doesn't even turn around! Why are the bosses so easy!?"

"But you know, I've gotta say, when they call these levels labyrinths, they aren't joking, at least for the later levels! They take _forever_ to get through! And even if you manage to find the GOAL gate, you can't leave unless you find the three keys. Sometimes enemies have them, sometimes they're tucked away in a dead end you wouldn't think to go to! It's a nightmare!"

"In the second Factory level, you have to stand on these tiny moving platforms and use these teleporters to move around this huge floating maze where falling causing you to land in a pit of lava with spikes in it! Isn't the lava enough? Did they have to put spikes in the lava too? What is this, _S_ _uper Pitfall?_ "

"The third Castle level is even worse with all these doors that send you all over the place to the point you feel like you're in a Ghost House from Super Mareo World. I hate games that put you in a position like that."

Button furrowed his brow and said in an enraged tone, "And what makes it all even worse, is that after you've finally gotten to the end, after the _easiest_ Dr. Robotnik final boss battle ever, you get _this_."

A message appeared over Sonic moving along a corridor saying, "CONGRATULATIONS! ALL ZONES CLEAR! BUT IT IS NOT PERFECT!"

"Oh, let me guess, I didn't get all the Chaos Emeralds, right?" Button said bitterly, "I know I only got four, oh wait, five actually, Robotnik drops the fifth one in the ending cut-scene, but how was I supposed to know that there was only gonna be four worlds in this game?"

"Well, to the game's credit, there is a clue in the end credits that tells you that you need to go to Zone 2-3 and do something with the right key and the 1 and 2 buttons."

Button nodded, "And well, yeah, I _did_ see a locked BONUS gate in that level, but I had no idea how to open it! I tried everything! I even ran out of time! _Twice_!"

Button played to the level in question and said, "Well guess what? I did some research and I found how to get it open. It turns out that 'right key' doesn't mean one of the actual keys you pick up in the stage. Oh no, that's not cryptic enough. It means _'hold the directional pad to the right'_ along with the 1 and 2 buttons for a few seconds _while inside a cannon_ and it will fire you to a secret platform with a switch that opens the gate."

Button looked at the game in utter shock. "HOW WOULD ANYPONY KNOW TO DO THAT!? Not only do they give you a misleading clue that's actually talking about something else you would never even think of in a thousand years, but they make you feel like an idiot for not figuring it out by blatantly showing you the BONUS gate as if to say, _'Ha-ha! You're too stupid to get in!'_ "

"So then you beat the game _alllll_ over again, Sonic has all six Chaos Emeralds, _yeah, this was back when there were only six of them_ , and he runs off into his Good Ending, and you get a level select cheat code as a rewards. Not that I'll be needing it, because I'm never playing this game again!"

Button took out the game cartridge and said, "Who would want to play game where Sonic moves slower than a slime for Torchlight II? Unless he's Spin Dashing, of course. Then he's more out of control than an Orc Berserker running on Propulsion Gel while covered with Repulsion Gel! It looks like even back then in the days of SEGA, the original classic Sonic the Hedgehog games were still the best, just as they are today! I'd much rather play a Sonic game on the SEGA Genesis then on the Wii U, if you know what I mean."

 **HIPSTER SONIC! HIPSTER-HIPSTER-!**

"Oh, shut-up!"

* * *

 _ **Author's Note:**_

 _Special thanks to Black Nerd Comedy for the Hipster Sonic meme._


End file.
